


Pride and Joy

by japansace



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Katsuki Mari, Alpha Victor Nikiforov, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon Universe, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Omega Katsuki Yuuri, Protectiveness, Scenting, a bit of possessiveness, awkward dorks i can't even with these two, courting, healthy though i promise, pregnancy kink (minor)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 14:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17788973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/japansace/pseuds/japansace
Summary: Big sister Mari vets her little brother’s suitor.It turns into a bake-off, somehow.





	Pride and Joy

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic in January. JANUARY OF 2018.
> 
> Despite the time going by, I kept whittling away at it and whittling away at it, thinking it was still worthwhile. But something was missing. And then I got paired up with [Gia](https://makkarons.tumblr.com/) for the Valentine’s Day collab, and with her encouragement and great ideas, I was finally able to fill in the gaps. So thank you, Gia. <3
> 
> As for how this idea came about, I’ve read a shameful amount of omegaverse, and the most common assignment of roles I see is omega!Yuuri (nice) and alpha!Mari (doubly nice), but… no one’s properly explored that dynamic????? Not to the extent I want anyway. So I had to roll up my sleeves and do it myself.
> 
> You’re welcome.

“Victor… What are you doing here?” Yuuri says instead of “So you’ve finally shown your face, Nikiforov! Took you long enough to show up!”

And then Victor stands up in all his natural glory, and Yuuri’s brain eats itself trying to process how this is simultaneously the best and the worst thing to ever happen to him.

“Yuuri!” he calls, tone steeped in vibrato that doesn’t walk itself down Yuuri’s spine so much as it crashes through it like a tidal wave. “Starting today, I’m going to be your coach!”

Yuuri has about zero point five seconds to process this before heat simmers low in his belly, followed swiftly and acutely by a merciless wave of nausea. “S-sorry,” he manages to choke out before he’s fleeing the baths, a hand over both his mouth and his nose because he can’t quite decide which is more of a priority: that he not spill his guts in front of Victor Nikiforov or that he block out that delectable scent that’s thick and cloying with the promise of strong, healthy pups.

He excuses himself from Victor’s welcoming party to have one of the most miserable heats of his entire life. It’s filled with him metaphorically holding a knife to his inner omega’s neck every time it whispers saccharine words in his ear that “Victor is just down the hall” and “it’d only take a minute to convince him to have his way with you” and “just jump on the alpha—just _do it_!”

He holds off—just barely, each suggestion worse than the last—until his mind resorts to the more desperate of tactics, pairing up with his anxiety to create a tag team from hell. 

“He doesn’t want you ‘cause you’re not pretty enough—‘cause your scent isn’t sweet enough,” they sneer. “Your nest isn’t good enough. You should make it up again—twice, even, just for good measure.”

Worn down as he is, he allows himself to partake in that last suggestion, letting his mind divulge in the pleasure of imagining for the briefest of moments that Victor really _will_ like this newest iteration of his nest—that he’ll finally come find Yuuri and take him properly until he’s blooming with new life, weighed down with righteous responsibility, glowing with the fact that “Victor Nikiforov did this to me; you see, he’s _mine_ , and this is my _proof._ ”

As it is, Yuuri just obsessively rearranges the same two pillows over and over again, hoping he’ll accidentally stumble upon the magic formula that brings Victor in to finish what he’s started.

* * *

Yu-topia Katsuki is not exactly what Victor had expected.

The hot springs are nice enough. Fantastic, even. The food is wonderful; the accommodations are splendid.

It’s the hospitality—or lack thereof—that has Victor’s skin crawling.

Yuuri’s parents are kind. Sweet, really. Victor has no problem with them. He thought this would be his biggest obstacle, honestly: convincing Yuuri’s parents to give him a chance—to let a strange alpha encroach on their son’s space, court him, wed him, bed him (in that order, if all went well)—but he comes to find out they’re two soft-spoken betas who don’t necessarily take any issue with him so long as he doesn’t make Yuuri uncomfortable.

This makes sense though, in hindsight. What makes less sense, however, is why the inn is still absolutely drenched in the scent of territorial alpha.

Victor comes to find out its source quickly enough.

“Don’t get any fucking ideas,” Mari says, stout, resolute from before Yuuri’s door. She’s taken up a post there while her brother suffers through his heat—which Victor may or may not have triggered, but if he thinks about that too long, problems are going to arise in more ways than one—and doesn’t exactly look prone to suggestion, if the way she’s sharping a knife for no adequately explained reason is anything to go by.

“I don’t have any fucking ideas,” Victor parrots, emphasis on the “fucking.”

“Eh…?” She drags the knife’s edge across the sharpening stone in such a way that it has Victor’s metaphorical ears lying flat, then examines the blade for nicks with a discerning eye. “Is that so?”

Victor thinks to answer this as though it’s the question it is would be to fall right into her trap.

“Well…” Grip lax, mutable—comfortable, Victor notes with a shudder—she points the end of the knife towards the banquet hall Victor has been oh-so graciously allotted. “Go on then, if your mind is so devoid of thought.”

Victor feels chastened, if ever he once was. It’s maddening, really, to be pushed around by another alpha when he could so easily be with Yuuri right now: petting him, feeding him, telling him how good he is, how Victor will always be with him, always be there to protect him.

Apparently though, that position is currently filled.

So Victor is left to his own devises, only allowed to claim a little corner of the onsen for himself that unfortunately offers no sweet omega to nest in his den, no matter how much he adorns it with the prettiest of clothes, the brightest of trinkets, the finest of wears. When he’s sufficiently preened—to zero results, good or bad—he stalks the hallways to get out the nervous tension, wringing his hands with each lap around the perimeter.

Truth be told, he’s actually _glad_ when Yuuri’s heat at last breaks. Any more of it, and he’d surely have gone mad.

The poor omega drags himself to where Victor is partaking in a humble breakfast the morning of day five, droplets dripping down his shirt collar from a recent showering. Nothing colors his scent other than a purveying sense of exhaustion and the subtle note of disappointment.

Victor can’t help but choke a little on his rice, detecting that last part.

“Yuu—?”

“Goooooood morning.” Mari inserts herself between Victor and Yuuri, loudly dropping a plate before her and her brother. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Um… yes…?”

Yuuri merely nuzzles his head between Mari’s neck and shoulder, grumbling what could be an affirmative.

At this, Mari offers him a wry smile. “Yes, yes.” She cards a hand through the hair on his nape soothingly. “Just try to eat something, all right?”

Yuuri does, albeit slowly. He seems unaware of anything around him save for the egg balanced precariously on his chopsticks, staring it down with the single-minded determination usually reserved for the likes of brain surgery.

He doesn’t see when Mari glares at Victor, doesn’t notice when she growls low in her throat as if daring him to make a move.

But Victor does.

Oh, does Victor _ever._

“Mari-san, may I speak with you in the kitchen?”

Mari cuts her glance between him and Yuuri, as if weighing the odds of him jumping her brother should she extract herself from her carefully placed position.

In the end, logic seems to win out.

“If you must.” She shrugs Yuuri off, gently, but not before guiding some food into his mouth and watching him swallow.

They’re hardly a step into the kitchen when Mari slams the door.

“Okay, Nikiforov, what’s your angle?”  
  
“Angle?” says Victor with a dozen metaphorical question marks following the query. He feels a little like Mari might be one of those people who learned English via obsessively rewatching _The Godfather._

“You know.” Mari looks him up and down, ostensibly unimpressed. “Your intentions. What are your intensions with my brother?”

“Uh—“

“Don’t you ‘uh’ me, pal.” 

Yes, definitely _The Godfather._

“I have no intentions at all, Mari-san.”

“Don’t give me that!” She drops her hand down on the counter, a resounding slap ringing out. “Some famous alpha shows up naked at my baby brother’s doorstep, and what, expects _nothing_?”

“Well, no, not nothing—" 

“What is it then?”

Victor consciously releases the tension from his shoulders. “I expect Yuuri to give me his most ardent effort in winning this year’s Grand Prix Final. That is all.”

Mari searches his face, meticulously, for any tells that might give him away. Slowly, she lifts her hand back up from the counter, palm stained an angry red. “Fine… Fine, Nikiforov. But you better stay on your toes. I’ll be watching you.”

Victor nods, solemnly. “I wouldn’t expect anything different.”

* * *

 

Courting Yuuri surreptitiously is… hard, to say the least. For many reasons.

For one, he has Mari continuously breathing down his neck. That would be challenge enough on its own, but then Victor discovers something arguably even more difficult to overcome: namely, Yuuri’s complete and utter obliviousness to his advances.

Watching Yuuri from across the ice, Victor drags a wrist, agitatedly, up and down the zipper of Yuuri’s Team Japan jacket. The motion is to scent it, of course, but it is also simply out of restlessness. Yuuri has either been completely unaware of his affections or outright ignoring them thus far, and he’s not sure which scenario is _worse_. He can only tie Yuuri’s laces so many times before instinct dictates he lean down to kiss the ankle of his boot to more obviously get his message across, and Victor is running out of excuses as to why that would be a bad idea.

Besides which, Yuuri isn’t _safe_.

But he is. Of course he is. Logically, Victor knows this. Yuuri is in his hometown, surrounded by neighbors and friends. Mari’s familial scent on him is never far behind.

And yet, he isn’t _claimed_ , and that _irks_ Victor, because oh, wouldn’t Yuuri look so lovely with a mark on his neck? High on the delicate skin beside his throat, where even a scarf couldn’t conceal it? Perhaps he could wear a necklace—something obscenely expensive that Victor would pick out, of course—in a sharp ruby-red or deep ocean sapphire. It would frame his collarbone so exquisitely, have Victor’s mark on him stand out all the more starkly.

“Victor…?”

Victor startles out of his reverie just long enough to at last notice that Yuuri has stopped mid-routine, scratching at his scent mark exactly where Victor had been fantasizing about wanting to put his teeth. “Um, could you… calm down a little? It’s, uh… making me feel weird.”

 _Good weird or bad weird?_ Victor desperately wants to ask. Instead, he folds Yuuri’s jacket—pulling at non-existent wrinkles—upon his lap as though that’s what he’d been doing all along. “Of course. I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

“It’s okay.” Yuuri laughs, a bit too shrill. “At least I know ‘Eros’ is coming along well. I’ll… try to tone it down. I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

Yuuri turns away before he can see the face Victor makes at this remark, which can only be described as incredulous.

It remains difficult though: being just sly enough to slip under Mari’s radar while at the same time being heavy-handed enough to capture Yuuri’s attention. It feels a bit as though Victor is walking a tightrope line with his eyes closed, never knowing quite when or if the floor will fall out from under him.

So he plays the waiting game.

And then loses.

 _Badly_.

It’s somewhere mid-air above the ice in Beijing, China that Victor starts to consider the consequences to his actions. But when he finally drinks in the sweetness that is Yuuri’s mouth, he can’t find it in himself to regret a single thing.

In fact, Mari Katsuki is the very last thing from his mind when he and Yuuri at last get a moment of peace after the medaling ceremony, running hands and wrists down each other like horny teenagers taking advantage of the backrow of a dimly lit cinema.

It doesn’t progress any further than that, and Victor hadn’t expected it to. Still, something inside him settles when Yuuri wordlessly spurns the comforts of his own bed that night in favor of Victor’s, dragging pillows and blankets from it over to where Victor lies to ensconce him in a makeshift nest. It’s messy and frantic but cozy all the same, and Victor finds himself thinking it’s perfect when Yuuri falls on top of him immediately upon its completion, curling against his chest with a little “I’m tired.”

Victor smiles at this, resting a hand over the small of Yuuri’s back. His hardworking student hasn’t slept properly in over forty-eight hours; frankly, he’s shocked Yuuri has remained conscious for this long. “Then sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

Yuuri smothers a yawn into Victor’s neck. “Okay.”

And that, it seems, is that.

* * *

A thought shakes loose from Victor at the exact moment their airplane’s wheels hit Japanese soil, eyes widening, mouth parting from where he was looking out the window at the sea.

_Oh, fuck._

He sweats the entire taxi ride back to the onsen, praying fervently Yuuri doesn’t pick up on his unease. It seems, though, that luck is on his side this time, as Yuuri sleeps the whole way home slumped against his shoulder, blissfully unaware of the world around him.

If only he could stay like that.

When they arrive, Victor creeps through the door of the onsen as though he’s about to be accosted, sticking to the walls, protecting his back. His strange behavior earns a raised eyebrow from Yuuri, but he’s thankfully too jetlagged to summon anything beyond that.

Still, Victor finds he was right to be cautious when he and Yuuri enter the lounge to discover Yuuri’s family and friends in the dark, illuminating the room with an enthused “surprise!” upon their entry.

Well… Victor does so love surprises.

“Omedetou, Yuuri!” Hiroko squeals, stepping forward with a platter in her hands; a cake lies atop it, something butter-creamed with vanilla and garnished with strawberries. “Let’s celebrate your win!”

“I didn’t win, Okaa-san,” Yuuri says, sheepish, but his soft smile lets on that he’s pleased with himself. He drops before the kotatsu to take a seat, and Victor follows warily, eyes searching out a missing party.

“So Hiroko-san,” he prompts, faux-casual, “where is Mari this fine evening?”

Yuuri translates, sleepily reaching under his glasses to rub at an eye.

She answers, and Yuuri translates again: “Went to the store for something. She’ll be back soon.”

Victor gulps, the bite of cake on his palate turning to dust.

He’s only just choked it down when the distinct noise of plastic bags thwaping against the tatami turns everyone’s heads towards the entry.

And there stands Mari: nostrils flaring, dark eyes glaring, standing aloft dribbling milk cartons and snapped Pocky sticks with a murderous gaze. Then she lifts one hand up—a single finger forward—to point directly at Victor.

“Shoubu!" 

“Excuse me—?”

“Nee-chan, _no—_ “

“I challenge you to a duel! Only if you win will I acknowledge you as worthy of my brother’s hand!”

“ _In marriage_?” Yuuri and Victor say at the same time, with distinctly different tones and inflections.

Mari doesn’t let them ruminate. “So? Do you accept?”

Victor looks to Yuuri, to Yuuri’s parents, to Yuuri’s friends. None of them look particularly concerned about this recent development—well, all except for Yuuri, of course, but Victor can name more instances in which Yuuri has looked panicked than not—so he stands, literally and figuratively rising to the challenge.

“If all it takes to earn your approval is for me to win a little competition, then yes, I accept.” He can’t help himself then but tap at his mouth, tilting his head with a brazen wink. “But be warned: I do have a bit of a reputation for not losing easily.”

Mari scoffs. “I’m not scared of you, Nikiforov.” She stalks over to the table, dropping into a cushion opposite of Victor. “Then we’ll compete tomorrow. At noon. Any objections?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Good.”

“Ah, well, except for… in what manner will we be competing, exactly?”

Beside him, Yuuri slaps a hand to his own face.

* * *

Yuuri explains what a “shoubu” entails in the dark of the banquet hall later that night, words soft and muffled, absorbed by the old wood, the papered walls.

In the most literal sense, it means a match—a contest—but in this context, it refers to the archaic practice of an alpha challenging the head alpha of a household for the right to wed their resident omega.

Trying in vain to keep the fear out of his voice, Victor asks if Yuuri believes Mari is actually going to _fight him_ tomorrow.

“Probably not.”

It’s not exactly the emphatic denial Victor was looking for.

Well then. He’ll just have to hope for the best.

He wakes in the morning to find his arms empty, Yuuri having already gotten up—which is unusual in and of itself—but ignores the peculiarity for the time being, dragging himself to the bathroom to don his finest war paint.

After all, he needs to look pretty for his Yuuri.

When he’s satisfied with the sharpness of his eyeliner, the rosiness of his cheeks, he raids his wardrobe for something reputable—expensive but not overly ornate—and hopes it suits whatever activity he’s in for.

He finds out quickly enough, upon entering the dining room, that he would have been considered underdressed no matter what.

Because Yuuri is sat there—on the _table_ —as though it was a dais, clad in a kimono: a scarlet red one with golden accents swirling around the neck and shoulder, hip and knee. An equally gold obi holds it all together, and a fan boasting an ukiyo-e-style landscape of a snow-peaked mountain is held before his face, hiding what Victor can perceive around the edges to be a ferocious blush.

Then he lowers the fan—just a touch—and Victor almost swallows his own tongue seeing Yuuri has on golden eyeshadow to match.

“Don’t… Don’t look at me like that,” Yuuri says—pleas, rather—into the fan, eyes closing tightly. “Nee-chan said… I should act the part, so…”

Victor opens his mouth to say something—god only knows what—but gets an apron to the face for his effort, Mari having thrown it over him.

“You’re going to need this,” she sneers, striding past him towards the kitchen.

Victor pulls the apron from his head. “What for?”

Mari turns on her heel, hands set up high on her hips. “For the shoubu, of course. We’re having a cooking contest.”

“ _Cooking_?”

“Yeah. Got a problem with that?”

“Well—“

“It’s a Katsudon-making contest.” Mari jams her thumb in Yuuri’s direction; he squeaks and hides again behind his prop in response. “It was Yuuri’s idea. Whoever makes his favorite food better wins. Sounds fair, right?" 

Victor looks to Yuuri—well, _at Yuuri_. Specifically at his fingers from where he holds up his fan, nails freshly painted a sinful red to complement the rest of his attire. He thinks he sees Yuuri nod—almost imperceptibly—but it’s hard to say.

He cuts his glance back to Mari. “Will I be provided a recipe?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s get started." 

* * *

Mama Katsuki makes this look so _easy._

That’s all Victor can think as he nurses a wound from the hot oil that’s meant to deep fry the pork. He puts it under some water—only to realize he’s left an egg on the stove too long, running over with an indignant yelp to flip it before it well and truly starts burning.

“Careful,” Mari says, deadpan, not even deigning to look up from where she’s chopping green onions.

“I know, I know.” He doesn’t. Not really. But he’s trying his best.

He throws in a splash of sake into the rice cooker—he thinks he watched a video online once that did that—and then switches places with Mari to do some more prep. He ends up hurting himself again with the knife, which has Mari rolling her eyes, but she takes pity on him and retrieves the first aid kit for him from the closet.

(The bandages have little puppy paw prints on them. Victor wants to cry.)

When they at last return to the dining room sporting their dishes, they catch Yuuri stretching his legs out, but he quickly returns back to his dignified seiza position, fan picked up to once again poise before him. “Are—are you done?”

“Yep.” Mari places her bowl before Yuuri. It’s still steaming—rich and decadent-looking—and when Yuuri lowers the fan from his face to take it in, Victor sees Yuuri’s little tongue lick out to wet his lower lip.

He lifts the chopsticks from beside it. “Itadakimasu.”

Picking up a bit of everything, Yuuri takes a bite; he looks to the ceiling as he chews, as though taking great deliberation in analyzing the flavor combination. “It’s really good…”

Mari sends Victor what can only be considered a shit-eating grin.

Victor pointedly ignores it, placing his own bowl before Yuuri.

When Yuuri takes a bite of Victor’s offering, his eyes never stray from the hands that made it, taking in the bandages with a furrowed brow. He chews. Swallows. Considers. Then places his chopsticks down atop the bowl with a decidedly final ceramic clink.

“Victor wins." 

“ _He does_?”

“I do?”

“Yes.” Yuuri sits straighter, hands folded demurely in his lap but still tensed, as if prepared to strike at any sudden movement. “I’ve made my decision.”

Mari looks to Victor. Then Yuuri. Then Victor, then Yuuri again. “ _Ugh_.” She throws her hands up. “You two really deserve each other, you know that?”

She storms out before anything else can be said.

“Will she—?”

“She’ll be fine.” Yuuri unfolds his legs, letting them swing over the edge of the table.

Victor approaches, taking a knee to run fingers down Yuuri’s no-doubt sore muscles. “I didn’t really win, did I?”

“Yes, you did.” Yuuri picks up his fan from where he’d left it, waving it before him with exaggerated blinks that only serve to showcase the loveliness of his eyelashes. “I said whichever one I liked better would be deemed the winner. I never said _tasted_ better.”

“So it was bad?”

“It was… interesting.”

“Well…” Victor moves from Yuuri’s legs to a hand, kneading a thumb into the crease of his linelife. “Since I’ve won, I suppose I have a lifetime to perfect it.”

Yuuri colors beautifully. “I… suppose you do.”

“Then you’ll marry me?”

“M-maybe someday!”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Yuuri mutters something under his breath that Victor is glad he’s unable to translate. “Whatever. Just help me out of this ridiculous outfit.”

“Well, if you insist, but I was planning to wait until marriage…”

When Yuuri slaps the fan to his chest, all Victor can do is laugh. “Not like _that_!”

**Author's Note:**

> It started off so thirsty and then got so sappy...? Why am I like this?
> 
> The katsudon-making contest was all Gia's idea. Thank you for showing me the light. She contributed to this fic by doing some art as well, which you can see [here](http://japansace.tumblr.com/post/182813087781/pride-and-joy-japansace-yuri-on-ice-anime).
> 
> Happy Valentine's~!


End file.
